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Ten thousand St. Petersburg schoolchildren have been given a booklet explaining their basic rights as set out by a United Nations convention, courtesy of a number of local organizations including the local branch of the Unity faction. But the book's authors have also seen fit to include a potted biography of the man "who is responsible for everything in your country" - Vladimir Putin. |
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MOSCOW - The U.S. government filed a $120 million lawsuit Tuesday against Harvard University and two former Harvard employees who advised Russia on economic reform. |
 The captains of six ships that have been detained in St. Petersburg since May 1999 began filling one section in each vessel with water at 11 p.m. on Thursday in order to bring their plight to the attention of City Hall. The vessels were originally detained by St. Petersburg customs authorities, on the order of their Vladivostok department, in May 1999 for non-payment of taxes. |
All photos from issue.
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 Buying a book in downtown St. Petersburg became a lot more difficult for an hour on Tuesday, as book stores went on strike to protest a City Hall initiative that would effectively raise their rents. Dom Knigi, the Writers' Bookstore, and the Iskusstvo rare book shop were among those closing their doors from 4 p. |
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Pope Charged MOSCOW (AP) - Prosecutors have officially charged U.S. businessman Edmond Pope with espionage and sent his case to court, officials said Wednesday. |
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MOSCOW - Prosecutors launched a criminal embezzlement case on Thursday against the heads of companies belonging to Media-MOST. The charges raise the stake in a quarrel between the Media-MOST group and its creditor, state-dominated natural gas monopoly Gazprom, which has led to doubts over President Vla di mir Putin's commitment to free speech. |
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MOSCOW - Expatriates living in Russia have regained their right to drive using an international driving permit or a notarized translation of their national license, traffic police officials said Wednesday. |
 The Kremlin is pressing ahead with plans to turn a palace near St. Petersburg into a seaside residence for President Vladimir Putin, correspondence between the presidential administration and City Hall shows. A letter sent by the Kremlin earlier this month asked the city administration for an evaluation of the condition of the Konstantinovsky Palace, located in the suburb of Strelna, south of the city. |
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MOSCOW - Kemerovo regional Gov. Aman Tuleyev said Wednesday that he doubted former Olympic biathlon champion Alexander Tikhonov had anything to do with an alleged plot to kill him and pointed the finger at the head of metal holding MIKOM. |
 A group of local artists and musicians went on another mercy mission this week, with a performance at a psychiatric hospital to follow up the exhibition and concert they brought to a women's detention center in March. Sculptor Andrei Rozanov, artists Igor Churilov and Vitaly Buryanin and pianist Polina Buryanina turned up at St. |
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MOSCOW - Two travel agents in Ka zakstan are facing up to four years' jail time for an elaborate documents fraud scheme that helped procure U.S. visas for 25 men and women - including a 63-year-old - posing as competitors in an American field hockey tournament. |
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MOSCOW - The health concerns of the anti-smoking U.S. public have gone too far for Aeroflot, the flagship airline of a country with one of the highest rates of tobacco use in the world. The carrier said Wednesday it wanted to overturn a prohibition on smoking on its flights to the United States, condemning the ban as an infringement of its national sovereignty. |
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Yury Savelyev was officially removed as general director at St. Petersburg's Samson food processing concern at an extraordinary shareholders meeting held Monday. A majority of the shareholders at the meeting voted for the executive's ouster. The vote against Savelyev actually represented 43 percent of all shares in the company, as shareholders representing 60 percent of all stock attended. |
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Nokia Network Russia has announced a change in their corporate priorities, with greater emphasis to be placed on the St. Petersburg cellular telephone systems market. |
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According to a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Russia's offshore programming sector (involving programming specialists in Russia who design software under contract with foreign companies) is growing at a rate of 50 to 60 percent per year. And, although this growth concerns what is, for now, a very small base, the authors of the report say that this industry should be able to obtain the requisite track record and international certification to become a greater force within the world offshore programming market. |
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MOSCOW - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Tuesday it has handed another $30 million to its local branch to give loans to small and medium businesses, bringing its loan portfolio to $60 million. |
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MOSCOW - Like many exporters, Sergei Terekhov wants his VAT. During all of 1999, Terekhov, board chairman at Tekstil Povolzhe, waited for tax inspectors in Volgograd to reimburse his company for the value-added tax, or VAT, that Tekstil Povolzhe paid its suppliers. Under current tax laws, exporters are entitled to be reimbursed for VAT they pay to the Tax Ministry within 10 days of filing with the tax police. But in practice, the system rarely works. "Exporters have always had the legal backing, but they never get paid," said Peter Arnett, tax partner at Ernst & Young. "It's the cash mentality of the tax police." "We live in a democratic society," Terekhov said. |
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 MOSCOW - An electronic system to clear imports quickly and raise collection rates of customs duties is being introduced in Moscow this week with the intention of extending it nationwide, but professionals warn that no electronic system can control corruption. |
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MOSCOW - A new Audit Chamber report found that the government committed massive violations in privatizing the aircraft manufacturing industry in the 1990s and calls for a review of the sales. The report, a copy of which was obtained by The St. Petersburg Times, paints a gruesome picture of a once-mammoth industry that has fallen on hard times because of violations in the 1992-99 sell-offs and the subsequent mismanagement of the enterprises. |
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Dear Editor, I have long admired the performance of Russian athletes, particularly men and women gymnasts. They have set a standard of excellence throughout the years. Russian training methods have been adopted by many in the sport and the discipline that they display has long been evident. |
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WHEN Republicans launched a broadside against U.S. Vice President Al Gore for his dealings with Russia, they erected a weak pillar to support their most damaging charge: Gore kept himself "deliberately uninformed" about corruption and other problems that would have undermined Bill Clinton's Russia policies. |
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PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin has said he won't intervene in the conflict between Gazprom and Media-MOST. That's good. Citing Mikhail Gorbachev, who met with Putin as head of NTV's public council, Putin said he "had no clue" about the state's interference in the deal between the two private entities, and he was outraged by the behavior of Information Minister Mikhail Lesin. |
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by Ali Nassor Gazprom scored points this week in its political and commercial fracas with Media-MOST, as the government set about seizing assets belonging to Vla di mir Gusinsky's holding. |
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The single most important international theater event every year in Russia is the Baltiisky Dom Festival, which traditionally occurs just as the season is gaining momentum. With 19 countries, 87 theaters and 124 productions to its credit so far, the festival has seen its share of variety, and seems to grow every year. |
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It has always seemed to me the people in restaurants can be divided into two basic groups - eaters and diners. The eaters are there strictly for the food and make their choice of restaurants based on a sort of algebra, taking into account cost, size of portion and speed of delivery. |
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Finnish history and Russian drama will meet on the Alexandrinsky Theater stage this October as the Finnish National Theater from Helsinki begins its tour on Tuesday. Theater in Finland emerged back in the middle of the 19th century with drama predominating over other artistic forms. As Finnish drama still makes up nearly 50 percent of the national theaters' repertoire, it wouldn't be fair to exclude it from a foreign tour. The National Theater's visit kicks off with the production devoted to the life of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (Oct. 3 and 4), whose fate was closely connected with both countries. Legendary military commander and Finland's sixth president, Mannerheim counts among the country's most famous historical figures. |
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 One of Russia's first rock photographers, Andrei "Willy" Usov will be showing his photographs at an exhibition that opens at the House of Journalists on Oct. |
 The 1930s were a turning point for the United States and the Soviet Union. Both countries were attempting to create their national myths. The Soviet Union was striving for the utopian Communist future, while the United States was reconstructing the "American dream" that had collapsed during the depression. The exhibition of 1930s photographs from both countries called "Propaganda and Dreams," which opened in the Mikhail ovsky Castle last Thursday, allows us to compare the two realities. |
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 Yevgeny Grishkovets does not look like the sort of man to command an audience's attention. Modest, shy and effortlessly polite, it is safe to say that this 33-year-old is not a typical "theater person" and at times looks a little perplexed by his own success. |
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Lou Reed was rumored to be visiting St. Petersburg to say a word about New York bohemian art guru Andy Warhol at the opening of the artist's exhibition at the Hermitage - but as the museum's spokesperson said Thursday, there will be no "rock'n'roll animals" present. Instead, directors of the Hermitage and the Andy Warhol museum will speak - and probably the director of BMW, which lent the BMW M1 painted by Warhol in 1979. |
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Denmark's crucial referendum on joining Europe's single currency was too close to call in the final hours of voting on Thursday, with exit polls showing a late spurt by euro supporters. Exit polls among 15,000 voters, published by broadcaster TV2 with two hours of voting to go, put the 'no' vote at 50. |
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JAKARTA, Indonesia - An Indonesian court on Thursday ruled former autocrat Suharto was too ill to stand trial for corruption, all but ending efforts to punish him for widespread graft and abuses during his army-backed rule. |
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Gas Blast Kills 36 BEIJING (Reuters) - A gas explosion in a coal mine in southwestern China has killed 36 miners and trapped another 122 underground, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday. 83 people were also hurt in the blast that ripped through Muchonggou coal mine in Shuicheng province Wednesday evening, Xinhua added. |
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THE HAGUE, the Netherlands - Defense attorneys at the Lockerbie trial hammered away at a key prosecution witness on Thursday, portraying him as a man with Walter Mitty-like delusions. |
 BELGRADE - The Yugoslav opposition said on Thursday it would launch a widespread protest campaign to force President Slobodan Milosevic to admit he was defeated in presidential elections. "We will call people onto the streets and tell them not to leave until he gives up power," one opposition leader, Zoran Djindjic, told Reuters. It was the first indication of how the opposition hopes to keep up the pressure on Milosevic to leave office and make way for their candidate Vojislav Kostunica, who received strong support from a huge rally in Belgrade on Wednesday night. |
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 SYDNEY - Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov defeated Tommy Haas of Germany in five grueling sets on Thursday to claim Russia's first-ever Olympic tennis gold. The fifth-seeded Kafelnikov, a master of five-set matches, claimed a 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory in a baseline battle that took three hours and 34 minutes to produce a champion. |
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Sisters Win Doubles SYDNEY (AP) - The Williams Invitational, also known as Olympic women's tennis, ended with a fittingly ferocious flourish. The sisters dominated in Sydney from start to finish, beating the Dutch team of Boogert and Miriam Oremans in the final Thursday, 6-1, 6-1. The gold was the second for Venus, who won the singles title Wednesday. |
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